Life...

Hello, friends.  It's been a while, hasn't it?  Let's see what I can tell you about my life since we last chatted...

We're well into a little thing called "rainy season" here, which means that most days this is the view from my classroom.

The general greyness of things reminds me very much of my own Pacific Northwest, though the effect is ruined as soon as you step outside. (Washington is very rarely this warm unless the sun is shining.)  Those mysterious red smudges are big cargo ships, waiting to be loaded up.  You can see the cranes behind them.  If my student Jack were here, he'd be able to tell you what kind of ships and cranes we're talking about.  He could probably tell you the names of the ships, too.  Jack is an enthusiast when it comes to ships, tugboats, tankers, cranes and anything else having to do with sea-going vessels. I have another student who's the same way, only with planes and airports.  He once gave a 20+ slide presentation on Heathrow International Airport and current plans for the addition of a floating terminal.  I am often struck with the unique lives my students lead.  I pray that they come to see the marvelous gift they're being given as they wrestle with the challenge of growing up on the world's largest civilian hospital ship.  (I have to remember that myself.  The gift and the challenge go together--you can't have the first without the second.)  Maybe someday, I'll eventually get used to hearing things like, "This weekend at our youth camp-out, we got to roast a crocodile for dinner!"  (True story.  They purchased it from a local vendor, killed it, cleaned it, and coated it with crunched-up pringles.)  But it hasn't happened yet.  Ah well, perhaps after another year...  

Speaking of unexpected animals, I saw these beauties mounted on the wall of our mid-ships lounge area just a few days ago.  Don't worry, they're paper mache.  Some of my students have been taking a special art class.  Pretty impressive, don't you think?  I don't remember doing anything like that when I went to high school.  (I'm still waiting for the back half of each animal to show up on the other side of the wall.  Maybe next quarter?  Here's hoping!) 

Last weekend, a couple of friends and I participated in the Africa Mercy version of the Amazing Race.   Basically, we spent the day running all over Pointe Noire completing various challenges and generally making fools of ourselves.  The picture above was taken just prior to our canoe challenge.  (Esther is on the left and Andrea on the right, from England and Holland, respectively.)  Unfortunately, the wind came up and the currents got a little too strong for us to make it all the way out to our goal, but as you can see from the photo below, we did in fact propel the canoe with our oars (which, in my mind, constitutes a real victory).  We may have gone a little faster if that guy on the end hadn't been weighing us down.  Of course, we may also have tipped over, so it's just as well he was there.

Among our other challenges were:  carving a wooden coaster (pictured above--not as easy as it looks, by the way), cooking and selling an egg sandwich from a Congolese food cart on the side of the road, catching some chickens, playing soccer with a few local boys (who very graciously let us win), shining shoes at the airport (I actually earned a dollar doing this!  It's always nice to gain a new marketable skill), trying to cook two fish we bought at the market over a charcoal fire built by ourselves (It's a good thing I know how to shine shoes, because I would never make it in a Congolese kitchen), and a complicated scavenger hunt through a crazy busy market.  My last thoughts before falling asleep that night were 1) I'm so glad we didn't have to eat the fish we "cooked" 2) I am going to be sore tomorrow and 3) I love my life! 

Over or Under?

This happened last week.  I'm the one in the middle.  You can't hear it, but right now I'm murmuring to myself, "Over? Under? Over? Under?..."  I saw the wave begin to swell out of the sea, like the horizon was being slowly sucked up into the sky right in front of me, gathering momentum even as it towered above me, and I knew I needed to do something before that wall of water met my frail girly body.  But I couldn't move because I hadn't quite decided which way I needed to go, over the wave or under it.  I'm no stranger to beaches and waves and suchlike.  I've played in the waves off of California, Florida, Washington (briefly), Kaua'i, and some delightful islands not an hour's boat ride from Conakry, Guinea.  I know that if you time it right, you can jump into the ridge of some very tall waves and be lifted right over them as they pass.  Or, you can dive straight under the base of the wave as it comes and feel its angry power rolling harmlessly over your back and down your legs.  It's only when you just stand there staring that the water can really hurt you.  I know all this, and yet there I am waiting like a fool about to get pummeled, paralyzed by my own indecision.

One of the most depressing things about growing up is realizing that some personal flaws are likely to be with us until we die.  I have never been great at making decisions.  I look at things from every possible angle I can find and make pros and cons lists like a champ, but I'm always haunted by the suspicion that I'm not seeing some key aspect of the problem, so I panic and go with whichever option my gut favors at the time (which would be a fine way to decide things if one's gut were at all consistent).  Then, I spend far too much time cringing because I'm sure I've made the wrong choice and there's no going back.  I'm pretty sure God just looks at me and chuckles, and you know, I don't blame Him one bit.  I am ridiculous.

Some people will argue that God has ordained our steps to such a degree that unless we consciously decide to disobey Him, we will end up where He wants us to be.  Others say that God lets us make our choices and works through those choices to bring about Good in our lives.  If you think about it, we're blessed either way.  Two things I know for sure.  We are flawed and broken people, imperfect in ways that we don't even understand yet.  And we are powerful.  We have influence we don't even see.  Our words, our choices, our character, it all matters more than we can understand.  And so we make messes.  It's inevitable.  The only way I know of avoiding it would be to disengage from living altogether.  Say nothing.  Try nothing.  Risk nothing.  Just keep your head down and don't expect too much.  But even that is a choice--one of the worst choices you can make, I think.

Why all this choice talk, you ask?  Well, it's because I've been struggling to choose whether to go back to the US at the end of this field service or to stay with Mercy Ships for another school year.  My original commitment was for two years, and those two years will be up in May 2014.  However, several people have made it clear to me that I could be a real help to my students and their families if I stayed a little longer.  At the same time, I know that there are plenty of students and families I could help in the United States (or in Europe, or anywhere really).  There are days when I miss my family and friends at home so much that it feels like I'm being stretched all the way back over the Atlantic and across North America, and I can feel the trade winds blowing through spider-silk threads of what used to be my heart.  I'm not going to pretend it isn't hard to walk down the same taupe-colored hallways and climb up the rickety metal ladder that leads to my dark little shelf of a bed every night.  But neither am I going to pretend that this isn't the biggest and most delightfully spicy adventure I've ever been on, or that it hasn't been an absolute honor to be part of the beautiful miracle that is Mercy Ships.  How often do you get to live in a place where, because of the love of Christ, the blind see and the lame walk and the outcast is restored to community?  How often do you get to learn from people who embrace joy and generosity in the midst of crushing poverty?  It's the spiritual and emotional equivalent of being part of one long ever-changing but always breathtaking sunset.

Of course it costs a lot, and I'm not the only one who's had to sacrifice to get me here, both financially and emotionally.  And I'm not saying that God will never call me back to serve Him in the United States (in fact, I kind of suspect He will).  But I'm not ready to be done with this particular adventure yet.  I want to lean in and soak up everything I can here, so that when I do move on, I'm not the same person I was when I left.

And so, dear friends, I've got good news and bad news.  The bad news is that we'll be apart a little longer than we may have planned.  To tell the truth, I don't know when I'll be home again, or even where 'home' is.  But the good news is that you get to be part of this amazing venture for one more year.

I have a feeling it's going to be a Very Good Year.

Love, Sarah

Happy Christmas!

I don't know about you, but this last month seems to have flown by.  How did we get all the way to Christmas already?  Above, you will see some pictures from our Academy Christmas play, which was performed last Thursday.  Every year, the students finish their first semester a week early and then devote the last week before Christmas break to putting on a Christmas play.  With our (the teachers') help, they not only learn all their lines, songs and dances, but they also build sets and props, sew costumes, and create playbills and programs.  Then, at the end of the week (!) they perform.  This year's show was about an hour and a half long.  And it was amazing.  I got to coach the actors, which was maddening and stressful and deeply rewarding.  I also got to help edit/write parts of the script.  

Isn't it great when you're part of a community that needs you?  The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that people need to be needed.  Independence is great, but sometimes I think we equate it with isolation.  Somehow we think that a healthy person is someone who never needs anyone else's help, but that's just not true.  People who never need help will never grow.  We all start as babies, right?  I can't think of a creature that's needier than a baby, precious little puddles of potential that they are.  All they can do at the beginning is eat, cry and poop.  And yet we make such a fuss over them.  Our hearts get all wibbly and we experience that fierce love that inspires an otherwise gentle mother bear to dismember any threat to her cub.  How different our lives would be if every person came fully prepared for independent living straight from the womb.   Whom would we feed, protect, teach, delight in?  For whom would we sacrifice?  How would we show our love?  What would love even look like?  We are meant to have needs just as surely as we are meant to fill each other's needs.

Jesus came as a baby.  There was a time in history when God incarnate could not feed himself, when God experienced hunger, loneliness, weakness, vulnerability.  He chose to embrace these things.  So why do I find myself believing that I should not?  It was good enough for God...should it not also be good enough for me?  Needs and weaknesses are not evil.  They are not a disease to be cured.  They are instead opportunities.  Every time I come up short, I have the chance to be helped, which means that someone else has the chance to make a difference in my life, to be my hero, to show me genuine love.  Every time someone I know doesn't have what it takes, I have the opportunity to do the same for them.  It's not a chore, it's an honor.  It makes our lives mean more than pleasure and comfort and all the stuff we think we should be striving for.  

This Christmas, I hope we all have needs that others can fill, and I hope we see ways to fill the needs of the people around us.  That's love, which is what this day is all about.

Cabin Fever

 This is what you get when a whole lot of bored grown ups get too close to a camera.  Okay, that's not entirely accurate.  There was a legitimate photo booth at our annual Fall Festival, and these are our legitimate photos.  That mustache and I became pretty good friends, as I recall.

How am I doing, you ask?  Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm getting a little bit stir-crazy.  We all are, I think.  We're well into our field service here.  Patients have come and gone, and new patients have come to take their places.  The students and I have been doing this whole "school" thing for what seems like forever.  We had our first good rain a couple nights ago, but other than that the weather maintains a warm and cloying mildness--not unlike the way a small bathroom feels right after someone has showered.  Not that I'm complaining.  It's just kind of surreal to know that somewhere Fall is falling, with Winter close on its heels, while we live in the land of perpetual Summer.  I think Cabin Fever may be setting in.

We all deal with it in our own ways.  From beard-growing contests (No-shave November, here we come!) to movie marathons ("You mean you've never seen Bridget Jones' Diary?!?") to homemade slingshots and blow-darts (I'm not naming any names, but some people I know spent their evening shooting a rolled up earplug across midships with a sling-shot made with catheters.  Not used ones, thank goodness.)  One of the more sanitary outlets available to us is ukulele club.  Last year I learned the benefits of ukuleleing on a regular basis (good for the blood pressure, for one thing--it's impossible to stay angry when you're playing a uke).  And this year, we have a motley little group that meets on Sunday evenings and strums through some of the classics.  It's such a simple instrument.  You don't need any experience, really.  No practice charts to turn in.  Just walk on by and pick up a uke and start strumming.  Here is a short video that my friend Dan took during a typical session.

There now.  Don't you feel happier?

Here's what I think.  I think that it doesn't really matter how awesome your life is, if you live it long enough, sooner or later you're going to look around and say, "Is this it?  I feel so...normal."  You may be tempted to drop everything and join the Circus, but the truth is that's no way to live.  I've got nothing against circuses, mind you.  I'm just trying to make a point.  A good life, in my opinion, is one that reaches beyond its own edges, one that takes root in the Eternal and bears fruit in the present.  And you can't live a life like that if you spend all your time and energy running away from "normal."

So do your worst, Cabin Fever!  I can't hear you over the sound of my ukulele songs.  I'm too busy taking pictures of myself with paper mustaches to listen to your whining.  And besides, I have a group of valuable teenagers to teach, and precious friends to comfort and entertain, and poems to write, and stories to tell, and children to play with.  I don't have time to wish I was living someone else's life.

the Hope Center

Last Tuesday, I locked up my classroom, changed into my jeans, and headed off to the Hope Center.  Every field service, Mercy Ships finds a suitable building in the city and fits it out to accommodate patients as they prepare for/recover from their various surgeries.  Not only does this free up bed space within the hospital, but it gives our patients a more homey environment in which to recuperate.  Nobody likes being trapped in a windowless ward any longer than is absolutely necessary! See me pointing at that yellow flower?  The boy to my right was asking for a yellow flower sticker for his picture, and I was confirming his request--IN FRENCH!  You read that right, friends!  I am now able to sustain simple but useful conversations in the velvety smooth tones of francais!  Vuex-tu une fleur jaune?  Oui mon jeun ami!  See? Myriam, our French, teacher is very proud of me (which is good because I pester her all the time).

Now let me tell you about my little friend in the yellow and blue.  This little girl wrapped herself around my legs pretty much as soon as I arrived.  Clearly, she had chosen me to be her new best friend.  She led me to a plastic chair and climbed right up onto my lap.  She spent the next hour playing patti-cake (which here basically means she clapped my hands together and laughed--she has a beautiful laugh), tickling and being tickled by me (did I mention how beautifully she laughs?), playing with my hair (first she'd pull it down in front of my face, then she'd put it on her own head--more laughing), examining the freckles on my arm (I must look so strange to her), and kissing my hands (my heart exploded into shards of rainbows, butterflies, and cute baby bunnies).  I have not felt so completely and profoundly loved in a long time.  The Single and Independent Childless Female doesn't get a whole lot of physical affection.  I don't think my new friend knew just how much she blessed me.  Isn't it just like God to bring me halfway across the world to be blessed by the people I came to bless?

Selection Day

Almost a month ago now we had Selection Day.  Whenever we come into port, we kick off our surgical activities with one massive call for patients.  We spend some weeks getting the word out with posters, billboards, radio announcements, etc. telling everyone that if they or someone they know has one of the conditions that we are able to treat (benign tumors, cleft lips, burn contractures, orthopedic stuff, etc.) then they need to come to Selection Day and we will see if we can indeed help them.  This year more than 7,000 people came and stood in line for hours.  Some of them had to be carried the whole way.  Of course all the medical crew were busy all day saying 'yes' to some and 'no' to others (heartbreaking work), but the rest of us got to fill such supporting roles as escorting patients from station to station, helping fill out paperwork, taking pictures of patients so that their surgeons can prepare properly, passing out peanut butter sandwiches and water bottles to all and sundry, providing security, and entertaining children.  I got to help with that last bit.  Above you will find a picture of me giving a little boy a sticker.  He took it very solemnly.  I spoke just enough French to be able to tell him he could pick his favorite color.  I think he chose blue.  It seems like such a little thing in the face of all the work that was done that day and still needs to be done.  So many people came.  At times it felt like trying to catch a waterfall in a teacup.

Did you know that Pointe Noire was at one time a major collection point for African slaves before they were shipped off to America and the West Indies?  Just last night, a Congolese friend was telling me about a museum near here that commemorates that nasty chapter of international history.  When you put a price on someone, you assign them a value relative to your own, contingent upon their potential ability to serve your needs.  You say to them 'You are only as important as you are useful to me,' and so you take away their person-hood and burden them with the lie that they must earn the right to matter.  It seems kind of poetic that a few centuries later a ship full of (mostly) Westerners should come and put themselves at the service of the Congolese people.  With every conversation that took place on Selection Day, we had a chance to show the people of Congo-Brazzaville that they are intrinsically valuable, that they are worth listening to, worth serving and celebrating and learning from.  I don't know how to make the world just.  With all the ways we hurt each other and have hurt each other, I don't know how to make everything right.  I don't even know how we're going to manage feeding everybody.  But I can show kindness to the handful of people I see from day to day.  I can try to see them the way God sees them and love them as Jesus is still teaching me to love.  I can speak truth in face of all the lies that have stacked up around us.  And that, I think, is the most powerful thing any of us can do for each other.  It's what I need people to do for me.  It is what we all ought to be doing for each other,
don't you think?

Academy Open House

A few weeks ago, we had our Academy Open House.  Now, since you can't come to the ship and see how we do things here, I thought I'd share a couple pictures and tidbits of information.  It'll be just like you were here, too!

First off, these crazy folks are my colleagues.  Yep, these ladies and this lone gentleman (God bless him!) are responsible for educating about 50 students, from pre-school up through 12th grade.  Average class sizes run from 2 students to a whopping 8 students per class.  That may not seem like much, but squish them all into a room the size of a nice walk-in closet and there is plenty of energy to go round.  Since many of our upper-level classes combine grades, we high school teachers cover material on a two-year rotation.  Last year, I taught World Geography (in addition to Bible and a couple English classes).  This year, we are plunging into History, from Ancient History all the way up through the Enlightenment.  I must say, I am enjoying it thoroughly.  I've had to read quite a bit to stay ahead of the students, but the material is fascinating indeed (and not entirely new--I do remember some things from college).

  For Open House, teachers were asked to provide fun activities for our visitors to do that showed the kinds of things we spend our precious time learning during the school day.  These happy adults are thinking of things to add to a "Mercy Ships Timeline" we were creating, showing all the significant events that crew members who visited my classroom wanted to add.  The timeline ran from 1940 to the present and included such varied events as birthdays, marriages, first baseball games, coming to the ship, the birth/adoption of children and so on.  One cheeky man documented the year in which his wife was born.  He was smart enough not to write her name, though.  Below you will find a picture of the final product.  Not bad eh?

Every so often I have to stop and marvel at the remarkable community I live in.  Granted, we have our disagreements.  You don't get 300+ people all living together without at least a few ruffled feathers.  But the generosity I see around me as people get down to the business of pouring themselves out for each other is just breath-taking.  It's like a preview of heaven.